The Murder League

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  “Cliff has a champion idea if the bloke travels by helicopter,” Briggs explained, grinning. “Just has to know where he lands. He’s planning a bear pit.” His grin faded. “For me, just find out if the lady has the thousand pounds.”

  “All shall be well,” Carruthers promised. He finished his beer and pushed back his chair, arose, and threaded his way through the various conversations that filled the place. He waved back from the escape hatch of the doorway and, setting his hat a bit more firmly on his head, started off on his errand.

  It was a warm, clear evening, and Mr. Carruthers paused for one moment to take a refreshing breath of air to clear away the remnants of pub smoke that still remained in his lungs. How much better, he thought philosophically, to have active plans for the evening rather than to be purposelessly tied down to an empty room or a dull book. He smiled congenially at several passers-by, patted an unresponsive youngster a bit vaguely about the head, and then, with unhurried steps, began his brief walk to his destination.

  His relaxed manner, however, did not blind him to his physical surroundings, for he had not gone far when he became aware that he was being followed. His smile disappeared, to be replaced by a thoughtful frown; for an instant thoughts of changing taxis crossed his mind, or employing other means of confused transport. Calm reason, however, prevailed, pointing out that at best this process would be expensive. With a sigh at the delay, he swung about, passed his shadow attempting to read price tags in a darkened storefront, and caught his companions before they had departed the pub.

  They expressed the proper surprise at his sudden return, but in a few words he made them aware of the facts.

  “My footsteps are being dogged,” he reported. “Undoubtedly by one of Inspector Painter’s curious cohorts. If you stare into the mirror as I am doing, you will note him as the husky blank-faced chap who just came in behind me. Your aid would be invaluable in removing this human bloodhound. As cheaply as possible,” he added as he saw the devil-may-care glint that had come into little Briggs’s eye. “Remember, as yet we have neither fee nor expense account. And we’re already over eight pounds in the sack.”

  Feeling certain that all would be handled, he once again nodded to them cheerfully and pushed his way back to the exit. He had complete faith that his companions would not fail him; after all, if one could not merely delay an annoying pursuer, one certainly had no business planning on murdering people. Feeling secure, therefore, Carruthers once again began his belated trip. There was a bit of commotion in the pub behind him, but he paid it no heed, pressing on toward his appointment. Within a few blocks he knew that his tracker had failed to take the precaution of having a backer-upper, and he therefore turned a corner and approached the group of flats where Mr. and Mrs. Alvin J. Crowley lived, but in which, if their plans matured, Mrs. Crowley would shortly maintain solitary residence.

  As he fingered the bell, he automatically removed his hat and brushed back his thick white hair. He had been well raised and a meeting with a woman, even a woman who contemplated having her husband done away with, required certain form. There was a harsh buzz from the door, and he pushed through. After attempting to differentiate the elevator from the porter’s broom closet, he correctly selected the smaller and rose swiftly to the proper floor. Arriving, he straightened his collar and was about to press the doorbell when the door swung back and he found himself confronting a sight that would have brought his blood to a boil some fifty years before. At his present age, however, it merely startled him.

  Mrs. Crowley, knowing she had to deal with a Man, had dressed—or undressed—accordingly, and their surprise was mutual.

  “Par’m me,” she said with a sharp gasp and fled, covering herself and calling back over her shoulder, “C’mon in and shut the door. Be back in a frown with a gown!”

  Carruthers edged his way into the apartment and laid his hat gingerly on a chair in the entryway. A mirror over a small table there assured him his hair was intact, but habit forced him to pass his hand over it again, and to ascertain that his collar had not come undone during the shocked moment of greeting. He was completing his inspection of himself when his hostess reappeared, this time dressed for company.

  “Sorry,” she said curtly, reassured by the apparent age of her visitor. “Drink?”

  “No, thank you. Mrs. Crowley?”

  “Well, excuse me while I do,” she said, seating herself and continuing her assault on the bottle where she had abandoned it at bell ring. She took a deep draught and set her glass down a bit unsteadily on the edge of the coffee table. “Wow—that’s better! Now, look, mister. Let’s get one thing straight. Are you the card who put that ad in the Times yesterday?”

  “Yes,” he answered simply. “Or rather, we did. We’re an organization, you know.”

  “Sit down, will you? You make me nervous, standing there like God or my old grade-school principal. All right, now, Pops; are you guys on the square? Are you for real?”

  Carruthers seated himself and leaned forward in his most impressive manner. “See here, Mrs. Crowley, possibly our conversation would be more fruitful if I were allowed to explain something. Our organization is in the business of killing people for money. You indicated to us an interest in our services. There is really no need for prolonged discussion; the answers to two questions will satisfy all requirements. One, are you in a position to pay our fee? Two, just who (or is it whom?) do you wish killed?”

  “Baby!” she said, shaking her head in admiration. “You sure can shuffle that diction!”

  Carruthers shrugged modestly.

  “Well, now, let’s see,” she went on. She took a deep gulp of her drink and studied Carruthers a bit blearily over the rim of her glass. “Let’s take the first question first. Just how much is this fee?”

  “One thousand pounds. Plus any incidental expenses, of course.”

  She frowned at him. “How much is that in money?”

  To his own amazement, he understood her. “You mean, how much is that in dollars?”

  “That’s what I said. How much is that in cash?”

  “Approximately three thousand dollars. A bit less, actually, but the expenses…”

  She sat, swinging her foot, studying the toe of her shoe. “Well,” she said finally, “the price is right—I’d be a liar to deny that. I could never have gotten Al bumped that cheap in the States. But in the States I never wanted to. In the States I thought he was the original little red wagon. That’s how it goes!” She downed her drink and started to pour another, but Carruthers, leaning forward, caught her arm.

  “Mrs. Crowley,” he said earnestly. “Please. We have business to discuss. Later, if you wish, but I would suggest—”

  “Sure,” said Mrs. Crowley, and smiled a bit loosely. “You know, Pops, even with that gray hair…”

  “My hair is white, Mrs. Crowley, not gray. Now, about this business of your husband.”

  “Oh, yeah. Al. That louse! What d’you want to know?”

  “Well,” said Carruthers carefully, wishing not for the first time that he had not been delayed and had been able to arrive before the effects of whiskey made themselves so evident. “First, of course, there is the question of payment.”

  “Payment? Three thousand lousy bucks? Pops, you slay me!” She leaned forward, weaving confidentially. “Do you know how much insurance that louse Al carries on his life? In my name? Can you guess? Well, let me bring you in loud and clear: that no-good husband of mine is worth over half a million cool bucks dead.” She thumbed her chest cushioningly. “To me. To little old me. And to little old me he ain’t worth two cents alive. But that ain’t why I want him bumped. You got to get that straight, Pops. It ain’t for the half million.”

  She shook her head tragically, her eyes swinging about the apartment. “D’you know why I’m here alone, Pops? D’you know where that louse husband of mine is right this minute? Right this very second, I’ll bet? Well, I’ll tell you! He’s shacked up with some dyed blonde in some
French hotel over in Paris! Howdya like them apples? And he thinks I’m so dumb I don’t know. His secretary, he says, like I don’t know the time of day! His secretary, he says, if you please, like I wasn’t his secretary my own self, once!” She hiccupped into bitter silence.

  There was a pause as Carruthers chose his next words with extreme care. “Now, Mrs. Crowley,” he finally said, “our organization attempts to divorce itself from the personal problems of its clients. We do our job and we get paid for it. In advance, naturally.”

  “In advance? Look, Pops,” said Mrs. Crowley, her eyes suddenly hard and almost sober. “You knock him off and you collect. But my mother didn’t raise any idiot children; I ain’t kicking in no three grand just on some guy’s say-so. Even if he does look like my old grandfather, God rest his soul. Except my grandfather didn’t look so sexy.” She hiccupped again, and then grinned.

  “Look, Pops, like this we’ll never get noplace. While we’re chewing the fat, Al could die of old age. Tell you what I’ll do: I’ll give you this diamond ring as security. Tiffany’s, and they don’t peddle glass. Take it anywhere you want and they’ll tell you it’s worth one hell of a lot more than any three grand. Now; if in one week that louse Al is where he belongs, I’ll hock it back for your three thousand bucks. If he ain’t, and I don’t have that ring back, I’ll raise a squawk that’ll turn your hair gray whether it is or not! Fair enough?” She tugged a ring from her finger and handed it over.

  Carruthers took the ring and eyed it swiftly. Even to his relatively inexpert eye it certainly seemed to represent more than the value of one murder, by their or anyone else’s price list. But before he slipped it into his waistcoat pocket he hesitated.

  “But your husband,” he asked cautiously. “Won’t he notice that it’s gone?”

  She laughed bitterly. “Al? That louse? He don’t notice my legs no more, let alone my hands.” She shrugged. “Anyway, you’re going to bump him, so what’s the diff?”

  “True.” Carruthers placed the ring out of sight and reassumed a businesslike manner. “And now we shall require a few particulars. A picture, perhaps, and the address of his office. Details about his club. A bit about his habits.”

  “I just got through telling you about his habits,” she said darkly. “Dyed blondes—those are his habits. And pictures? Don’t make me laugh.”

  She flung her hand about drunkenly, and Carruthers was suddenly aware that he had been sitting in a virtual gallery of photographs of one man. He arose and studied them carefully. While the thin face and plastered oily hair provided no particular index to character, he felt that anyone so addicted to violent patterns in his selection of clothing should not be difficult either to identify or to follow.

  “May I have one?”

  “Have two, or ten. They’re not small.”

  Carruthers slipped one into the inner pocket of his waistcoat and reseated himself. “And his office?”

  “Where he works? Well, when he isn’t running off to Paris with a new secretary every week, he hangs his hat at … at … Wait a minute. I’ve got it right here.”

  She teetered to an escritoire in one corner and extracted a card from beneath a pile of hairnets. “Auto-Vend, Inc.,” she read, and then looked up. “Fancy name for slot machines. He’s going to switch the Limeys—par’m me—off football pools. And he ain’t doing so bad, either,” she added with an inexplicable touch of pride. Her eyes returned to the card. “One South Court East, London West. What an address! No wonder this place is so screwed up!”

  Carruthers cleared his throat. He seemed to recognize that this was no time to battle for local pride. “May I have it? The card?”

  She handed it over and poured herself another drink, broodingly. “One-armed bandits! What a racket! That Al! That bastard!”

  Carruthers interrupted this diatribe hastily. “And his habits? His other habits, I mean,” he added hurriedly. “He leaves at what hour, and returns at what hour? From home? And his preference is for cabs, or he drives his own car, or possibly he has a driver? Details of that nature?”

  “Who, Al? A car? Not my old Al-boy!” She took a swift drink and slumped back in her chair, shaking her head. “My Al rides the subway—what you people over here call the underground. Not that he does it because he’s tight, you understand. I’ll give him credit for that—he’s loose as a goose. But he likes to ride the subway. Says it’s the only thing in this Godforsaken town that reminds him of the Bronx. The Bronx, yet! My God! The bastard!” She began to cry softly.

  Carruthers rose to his feet as if propelled by a rocket.

  “Possibly it would be better if I phoned for any further information, should we happen to need it,” he muttered in an embarrassed manner, and then paused in sudden thought. “One last question, though, I’m afraid I must ask. Exactly when is he scheduled to return from—ah, from Paris?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said tearfully, and then broke down in a torrent of sobs. “Poor Al!” she cried. “The bastard!”

  Carruthers let himself out of the apartment quietly, leaving the weeping woman stretched upon the couch fumbling through tear-blinded eyes for her glass. As he descended in the silent elevator, he wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead with his sleeve handkerchief, and shuddered. Poor Al! he thought; the poor cheating, lying, miserable, married, unfaithful illegitimate!

  “A certain suggested modification in our unwritten bylaws,” Carruthers insisted firmly. “No more women clients. Or, at least, no more from the colonies. Or, at the very least, no more from the colonies who drink. Since we have already accepted her diamond ring in good faith, and are therefore committed to this one, I suppose we shall have to see it through. So let us dispatch Mr. Crowley as rapidly as possible and be a bit more selective in the future.” He shuddered as he recalled his recent encounter with the thirsty Mrs. Crowley.

  “Had I been on time instead of being delayed,” he continued, stroking his white (not gray) hair contemplatively, “it is possible I might have been able to keep her from the bottle, although I do not guarantee it. As it was, however, she was enabled to establish a firm lead. And speaking of that delay,” he added, turning to Briggs questioningly, “just how did you pull our bloodhound from the spoor?”

  A faint smile broke across Briggs’s wizened face. “Chap had the confounded nerve to try to steal my umbrella. Or at least at the moment I thought he did. Actually, it seems it was really his own, and I had forgotten mine at home—but had forgotten that I had forgotten it, if you see what I mean. I must say his umbrella certainly looked like mine. Different color, of course, and a bit larger, and when I had a chance to examine it properly I could see where the handle was curved, whereas mine is straight. Oh, I apologized smartly enough, but the bloke still seemed a bit irritated. Appears I caused him to be late for some appointment or other.”

  His smile changed to a grin that was positively fiendish. Simpson was chuckling. “Seems the chap was a plainclothesman from the Metropolitan Police, too. Had I known that, of course, I’d never have created such a fuss, because while our bobbies may be forgetful, I’d be the last to accuse them of being downright crooked.”

  But Carruthers did not smile, continuing, rather, to look thoughtful.

  “It is possible that I shall have to have a further talk with Inspector Painter,” he said. “This is assuming the proportions of persecution, and on general principles I am opposed to harassment. Particularly as it affects me. Well! Enough of this. We shall see. Now to work!”

  He spread his loot from Mrs. Crowley’s apartment on the table before him. Simpson leaned over and read the business card, after which he studied the studio portrait of Mr. Alvin J. Crowley carefully.

  “I must admit,” he remarked rather absently, “that had I any great scruples about murder on moral or other grounds, this face would do much to dissipate them. Now, how did you say he traveled?”

  “Not by helicopter. He goes back and forth between his place of business and his flat by, of all things, t
he underground. It is not that he cannot afford more luxurious transportation; he seems to prefer riding the underground because (and here I am quoting his good wife) it seems to remind him of the Bronx.”

  “Those wild, untamed horses?” Briggs asked, his eyes bright with interest. He nodded complete agreement. “I can follow his reasoning.”

  “Those are broncs. No, this is a section of his native city, New York, where, it seems, they have a copy of our underground. In any event, this is his mode of travel.”

  He turned to Simpson with a businesslike air. “Have you considered a safe means of eliminating a confirmed underground rider?”

  Simpson shook his head unhappily. “I had assumed that any client of ours would move about by more expensive means,” he said dolefully. “If he were in the habit of racing down Oxford Street in a Jaguar, for example…” He sighed deeply, aware that all of his recent research had gone for naught. “Actually, it’s been ages since I was on the underground myself. No place to go,” he added sadly. “Nobody to visit, you see.”

  Carruthers came to a decision and consulted his pocket watch. “Well,” he said briskly, “I suggest you brush up on this weakness in your technical education by catching an underground right now. By judicious transferring you should be able to cover a goodly part of the city for only a few pennies, and still end up within walking distance of the Club. It may give you some further ideas.” His thick, wrinkled fingers drummed the table as he thought. “Yes. That’s the best solution. And when you have finished your odyssey, we shall discuss the details over a glass of ale.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Briggs offered, popping to his feet like a Thing-on-a-String. “Haven’t done much traveling myself lately.”

  “Then off you go,” Carruthers commanded. “Quickly! We must not keep Mr. Crowley waiting.”

  “My only doubt,” Simpson said slowly, sucking his plates into position, “is that it looks too easy.”

  They were sitting relaxedly in the three seats that comprised their alcove at the Club, partaking of a welcome ale. Simpson had finished his report, including recommendations, and the three were considering these recommendations thoughtfully. It was the first slaying on their newly launched career, and they all realized the importance of not blotting their copybook.